The Best of the Decade (?), By Niki Pop

I have been fretting about my Paulies decade entry far more than the 2009 entry. 2009 is pretty straightforward; at any given January, there are always enough cultural highlights from the previous twelve months to make up what passes for a "best of" list. But the decade was different. The longer timespan means the music has the chance to settle, to age, to stand the test of changing tastes and lifestyles. A record you first heard in 2001 may have taken until 2003 to really make any sense. Bands that you're crazy about in 2005 can seem obscene, regrettable, unfathomable in 2010. It raises some interesting questions about how tastes are made, and how personal events can affect what you're listening to (or not.)

I've also been fretting because, as I described to Paul and Matty the other day, there are clearly three ways to do this.

(1) Critical Best. I'm not the greatest Radiohead fan out there and I'll certainly concede that Kid A might be the most artistically accomplished record of the 00s. But does that make the list? What about an album I like just fine, like the Streets' Original Pirate Material or Cat Power's You Are Free, but that in my heart of hearts I just wouldn't take with to a desert island?

(2) Personal Best. This is a tough category, too, because if there's one thing that I did most in the 2000s, it was listen to bands from the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Seventies punk singles especially (is there anything sweeter than The Only Ones singing "Another Girl, Another Planet?" Modern Lovers singing "Road Runner?" or the Undertones "Teenage Kicks?") The Replacements, Pulp, and the Pixies are probably going to always be my top three. Those are the ones where I know all the words, and could even maybe possibly pick the artists out of a lineup. So it feels disingenuous to pick ten, twenty records that came out in the naughts, when in reality I spent an embarrassing chunk of that time pretending Paul Westerberg was my ne'er-do-well boyfriend singing angsty love songs to me after a hard day at work.

(3) Defining the Decade. Years from now, some aging hipster will seek to pay homage to his young adulthood. He'll produce a sweeping-yet-still-twee mockudock - think Forrest Gump meets Nine Songs - called "Bedford Ave" starring a Michael Cera-lookalike and Zoey Deschanel's daughter, let's call her Willis. Cera-boy lives in, oh, I don't know, Austin, or Portland, and Willis lives in Brooklyn. Their lives intersect in tragic and fragile ways. And the soundtrack will be more predictable than God. We'll buy "hits of the naughties" advertised on late night television, and try to explain to our kids what the deal was with the beards and banjos. We will never be forgiven for Joanna Newsom.

Clearly, the best solution is a mishmash of all three. So without further ado, here are twenty nineteen albums that defined the naughties for yours truly because I couldn’t stop listening to them.

1. Azure Ray/Azure Ray (2001) Sleepy dream-pop from two Southern gals. Like sitting on a porch in Georgia in sweltering August, sipping heavily spiked lemonade.

2. The Arcade Fire/ Funeral (2004) This is hands-down the most gorgeous, textured, evocative album I heard this decade. The summer of 2004 was the only time in my life I really drove long distances on a daily basis and this record was my companion. Still gives me chills when I see that “Where the Wild Things Are” trailer.

3. Bonde do Rolê /With Lasers (2007) Bratty Brazilian baile-funk, makes you want to quit your job and move to Rio. Portuguese is one of the most fascinating and listen-able languages out there, and when it’s dirty raps. Amazing live because then they can use the crazy illegal samples they love so much. “Solta o Frango” means “Release the chicken;” it’s Brazilianese for “Get crazy, bitches”



4. Desaparecidos/Read Music/Speak Spanish (2002) True: Bright Eyes is insufferable. Also true: this album is amazing, musically and lyrically. “The sort of howlingly tuneful Midwestern punk that disappeared with Hüsker Dü" (Entertainment Weekly) This is an album about becoming an adult in Bush’s America, feeling trapped by relationships and the suburbs and expectations. A real find, in other words, for my first few years out of college.

Favorite lyric: “I’m growing out my hair / like it was when I was single / it was longer than I’d known you / I had no money then, I had no worries then at all.”

Or how about: The man at the bank said ‘Let's not talk percentages. You work a fourteen hour day and still have two mortgages. You asked the state for aid and they gave you and ad campaign that didn't help.’ So you took your family and joined in the urban sprawl. Now you can't see that stars as well but you're near the mall.

5. Franz Ferdinand / Franz Ferdinand (2004) Of all the music in situation #3 (“Bedford Ave”) this is probably the cream of the crop.

6. Miss Kittin and the Hacker/First Album (2001) Listen to Miss Kittin and the Hacker’s new direction. Driving a car or three on three, Giving you a piece of life and Energy somewhere out in the universe.

7. Mountain Goats/The Sunset Tree (2005) From “No Children:” I hope that our few remaining friends/give up on trying to save us/I hope we come up with a failsafe plot to piss off the dumb few who forgave us.

8. Mum/Yesterday was dramatic, today was ok (2000) Best. Working. Music. Ever.

9. NOFX/War on Errorism (2003) Eerily prescient album about repressive government, financial meltdown, etc. When one makes twenty million, and ten thousand people lose, what keeps that one from swallowing a shotgun? Indeed.

10.Of Montreal/Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer (2007) Easily the best live show I’ve ever seen. They had some sort of papier mache lobster claw. I can’t explain it.

11. Postal Service/Give Up (2003) The only way I can still stomach Ben Gibbard is when his maudlin little voice is enveloped by sweet glitch techno. This was a good partnership.

12. Ratatat/Ratatat (2004) I think the most number of times I’ve listened to this album in a row is something like… 12.

13. The Shins/Chutes Too Narrow (2003) I’m not particularly attached to this one, but every time I hear it,

14. Sigur Rós/Ágætis byrjun (2001)

15. Sleater-Kinney/The Woods (2005) I had the extreme pleasure of seeing them on their tour for this record at the 9:30 Club in DC. It was obscenely great. They played Danzig’s “Mother” as an encore. No men like this album, because it takes rock and roll and makes it into this creepy deep female thing. Ladies, you know what I mean.



16. TV on the Radio/Young Liars EP (2003) This is one of those CDs where you pop it in, press play, and within three seconds are thinking “Holy shit. Are they really going to do this?” Yup, they are. It’s a holy shit moment all right.

17. The Thermals: The Body, The Blood (2006) Pop-punk decrying religion and politics? Hells yes, please! Especially when sung by a Tobey Maguire-lookalike.

18. The Strokes/Is this it? (2001) Need I say more?

19. Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Fever To Tell (2003)



That's it for this round. On to the next...